Frugally Awesome…or Awkward: Toddler Time!

The only thing I actually know is that there are plenty of ways to be frugal when it comes to having a toddler. It’s not just about learning to say no to their wants. It’s also clearly about learning to say no to my wants. Because I want to buy my baby everything.

There are plenty of ways to scale back some of your spending when it comes to having kids. Opting for secondhand items. Scoring finds straight from the curb. Using your library and other parts of your community. The list goes on. That’s the good news.

The bad news? Well, like most things in my life, it can get a little awkward.

“It only looks like pee.”

We are at that glorious stage in parenting. Our child can finally communicate clearly and we can understand him to ensure that his needs are always met.

Just kidding.

But he does say “Poo!” really loudly and pull down the back of his diaper. (Sometimes he pulls down the front, too, but that is another adventure for another day.)

We had a hunch that this poopy dance meant that it was time to entertain the idea of potty training. I brought it up at work because I am now That Mom, and one of my team members asked if we wanted his family’s training potty that his kids had long outgrown.

Obviously, frugal queen that I am, I said yes. Also, I said yes because I’m not actually sure what the etiquette is when it comes to refusing the proffer of a potty.

It seemed simple enough. Said coworker would bring the potty to work the next day, I would thank him, and then I would take it home.

I was quick to learn, though, that nothing is easy when it comes to potty training. Not even acquiring a free potty.

Here’s what I didn’t take into consideration: what I would actually do with the potty for an entire day. You see, our school has embraced the open office concept that so many businesses torture their employees with. (And also, we are out of space so they have to embrace it because our offices all got turned into mini intervention rooms so kids can learn in closet-size spaces now.) Problem solver that I am, I decided I would just stash the potty under my desk.

My coworker walked in with the potty, hefted it toward me, and said:

Don’t worry. The seat’s really clean. It only looks like pee. It’s just fading.”

And it was all downhill from there. Not only did my coteacher trip over said potty, but a handful of students spent the better part of the passing periods speculating as to what that thing behind my desk might be. (I mean, they already think I sleep in my room. Why not add a toilet?)

The grand finale, though, came when I realized that I had to carry the potty to my car. No matter how hard I looked, I couldn’t find a big enough box for it. So I waited as long as I could, hoping that most kids would have left the building, and dashed out the door with my sweater draped over it.

Of course, I had to navigate a gaggle of girls waiting for a ride. A student waved and shouted:

Bye, Miss! Wait. What was is that?”

Dear reader, that is the only time in 11 years that I ignored a student and ran to my car.

“You know I’m not a big fan of this curb garbage stuff.”

I’m not big on manifestations or mantras. They’re a little to woo-woo for me.

While I might not be willing to drink the Kool-Aid quite yet, the universe seems to be serving up a steaming platter of Told You So.

I might not be a total numbers junkie on this blog, but I did really enjoy geometry. And I’m good at Tetris. So I knew right off the bat that the toy kitchen wasn’t going to fit in my Camry. Surely, the basketball hoop would.

After shoving, spinning, and praying to the trash gods that I could get the hoop to fit, I realized it wouldn’t.

Not only that but it sloshed some kind of gross liquid all over my leather seats and maybe even put a small dent in the interior of my door. Defeated, I brought the hoop back to the dirty mattress.

Then, I did what any self-reliant woman would do.

I called my dad.

I quickly explained my camel-through-the-eye-of-a-needle dilemma, and he paused.

“I could come by with the truck.”

I replied, “I’d love that but I’d hate for you to drive for 10 or 15 minutes only to have someone take it before us.”

My dad countered:

OK. You know I’m not a big fan of this curb garbage stuff. How about I buy him a new kitchen instead?”

After I hung up, I did the only thing left to do.

I called my husband.

You see, I’d had some time to think through my Tetris problem, and I was fairly convinced that if the hoop came out of the base and my husband could drop this rear seats, it might actually fit in his car.

I’m happy to say that HP is thrilled to shoot hoops in his curb garbage. Someone else got the kitchen.

“Close the garage door!”

Last week, I was out late running errands. It was the night before garbage day, and my headlights caught something in their beams.

Four houses down from us, our neighbors had created a towering trash heap. Furniture, bookshelves, you name it, it was probably there.

My eye caught something that looked like a kids chair, but I had to keep driving. You know. Because I didn’t want to be a creep in a car.

Apparently, though, I have no problem being a creep on foot.

After I parked, I texted my husband that I was sure I found something good. We did a back and forth tag team (someone had to watch the sleeping baby!), and we realized we both hit the jackpot.

We unearthed two chairs and a water table full of little toys. None of it was cracked, none of it seemed broken.

We left everything splayed out in the garage so we could clean it up in the morning and show HP. Only later did I realize just how awkward it is when your garage door is wide open, your neighbor’s garbage is inside, and the mom walks by with her dog and stops to do a double take.

Before she could go get the whole family to confirm, I shouted to my husband, “Close the garage door!”

My plan, now that I’ve regained a few drops of composure, is to say thanks if she comes by to look again.

“You know, we’re not actually poor.”

We hadn’t been at Niagara Falls for more than a few hours and I could feel myself reflexively tightening my purse strings.

And I’m not talking about my backpack either.

I wasn’t so worried about this trip. HP is little, and he’s perfectly content to scoot in a stroller, show off his newly perfected march to strangers, and look at the water. (“Big! Big! Blue! Splash!”)

But I started talking to Mr. P about how much fun a return trip might be in a few years. We were somewhere between the second wax museum and the Ferris wheel (or was it the mini golf and the 12th arcade?) when I told my husband that the more I thought about it, the more I wasn’t sure we should come back.

He looked me square in the eye and said, “You know, we’re not actually poor. We can swing whatever trip we want so long as we plan for it.”

Final Thoughts on Frugally Awkward Toddler Time

Kids don’t have to be expensive (you know, once we overhaul the daycare and higher education systems in the States). But there’s a good chance no matter who you parent and no matter how you parent, things are going to get awkward.

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11 Comments

We have the best luck with curb finds! Last week we also saw a play kitchen. Since we walk everywhere, we had to balance it on top of the stroller and force our 3 year old to walk a mile home. It was totally worth it. And we were able to replace our previous toy kitchen (curb find circa 2009) with a nice wooden one!

This is fan-freaking-tastic! Once, my husband and I carried a dining room table around our entire block. It was so heavy, and it didn’t really come apart (our cars are small anyway!). It was hilarious and embarrassing and so worth it!

I am the curb queen. My husband has finally seen my ways and we’ve scored some great finds. Aside from being frugal it’s also about reusing and recycling. Why not 2 for 1 for our wallets and the environment? On baby stuff we bought the crib, stroller and car seat brand new cos folks everywhere are saying not to buy used. We are grateful for family and baby showers but plan on hitting up garage sales and goodwill for the rest. (Found a fancy high chair for $30!). I hope the lack of time and sleep doesn’t make me Amazon click happy but I love these stories about curb toys because it makes total sense. We’ve used baby shower gift cash and proceeds from yard sales and checking old coats and change jars to fund baby’s first $2762 529 contribution before he makes his debut.

I love it! It does get awkward at times, especially now that my 4yO loves to tell guests which of his toys “mommy found in someone’s garbage for me!” 😂. I’ve learned to embrace it, mostly because I have trouble resisting any good curb side find! These kid’s toys brand new cost a fortune so why wouldn’t we grab ’em and avoid them going to the landfills (or most likely in another mom/dad’s car lol). Thanks for sharing and making me feel more normal 😉, honestly for me 80% of this parenting stuff is learning to be awkward lol!

Maybe it’s the second kid, or that most of my students are in their late teens/early 20s, but I just calmly explained to students the potties I brought to work to hand me down to colleagues and had to keep with me until they got in. At some point excrement just isn’t embarrassing anymore.

But I recently found four nice chairs on the side of the road (hooray for dump day!) and had to make four separate trips to get them home because only one at a time would fit in my Civic. But I got them (and the table my ex-tenants gave me) all painted up and looking fab (if I do say so myself).

I did keep furtively looking around to see if the neighbors would notice my taking their garbage. Thankfully, no one was home I guess. Hooray for finishing work in the middle of the day (and, again, dump day)!

We decided to wait to start potty training until this fall when our little guy is just over 2 and number 2 is a couple months old. There is a certain convenience in saying “just go in your diaper I’ll get it in a second” esp when I’ll be nursing a newborn 24-7. However, we decided to put out our hand me down potty when little guy looked at me in the library and said “Momma, I got biiiiiiiiig turd!” 😳 I blame his father. Good luck with the potty training.

LOL at trying to hide the stuff from your neighbor. I haven’t found anything worth picking up on the side of the street in our neighborhood except when someone told us about a stroller. It kind of looked like a jogging stroller, but since it had rained a lot, I decided to pass on it. However, I did pick up a kiddie table with 4 stools. Looked up the price online and it was definitely a score!